Day 3 - Friday, February 24
Title: JESUS CALLS HIS FIRST DISCIPLES
Scripture: John 1:35-51
On the following day John was again standing with two of his disciples. He looked straight at Jesus as he walked along, and said, “There is the lamb of God!”

The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned round and when he saw them following him, spoke to them. “What do you want?” he said. “Master, where are you staying?” they replied.

“Come and see,” returned Jesus. So they went and saw where he was staying and remained with him the rest of that day. (It was then about four o’clock in the afternoon.) One of the two men who had heard what John said and had followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He went straight off and found his own brother, Simon, and told him, “We have found the Messiah!” (meaning, of course, Christ).

And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked steadily at him and said, “You are Simon, the son of John. From now on your name is Cephas”—(that is, Peter, meaning “a rock”).

The following day Jesus decided to go into Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me!” Philip was a man from Bethsaida, the town that Andrew and Peter came from. Now Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have discovered the man whom Moses wrote about in the Law and about whom the Prophets wrote too. He is Jesus, the son of Joseph and comes from Nazareth.”

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” retorted Nathanael. “You come and see,” replied Philip.

Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him and remarked, “Now here is a true man of Israel; there is no deceit in him!”

“How can you know me?” returned Nathanael. “When you were underneath that fig-tree,” replied Jesus, “before Philip called you, I saw you.”

At which Nathanael exclaimed, “Master, you are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel!”

“Do you believe in me,” replied Jesus, “because I said I had seen you underneath that fig-tree? You are going to see something greater than that! Believe me,” he added, “I tell you all that you will see Heaven wide open and God’s angels ascending and descending around the Son of Man!”

Poetry & Poet:
“Cloud of Unknowing”
by Chase Twichell

In spring, the apple and cherry trees are clouds
in twenty shades of pink.  Yet always,
behind them, a vaster radiance flares.
What I see, I see through drifts and veils—
There must be cloud in me too.
Snow is a cloud of distracting beauty,
its tiny sharp flowers aloft with weight
they can’t bear.  Each question must have a body.
I know my body, so what is my question?
Who speaks to me out of the blossoming cloud?

COME AND SEE

Chase Twichell’s poem for today invites the reader to echo her questioning that pushes beyond his self-possession. ‘I know my body, so what is my question?’ Maybe the poet’s question is answered by way of the second question: ‘Who speaks to me out of the blossoming cloud?” In the foreground of ‘a vaster radiance’ that ‘flares’, apple and cherry blossom cloud the vision. Just so the poet sees only as ‘through drifts and veils.’  Scripturally, it is God who speaks from a cloud, beyond the reach of regular vision (Exodus 19). But what he speaks is dazzlingly clear. It is God’s address to us that allows us to truly know ourselves––in both our sin and in our restoration and flourishing. For without God’s address to us we are mysteries to ourselves––What am I for? Why am I such a mess? Whom does the wonder of me honor? For whom should I live?

Moses came down from the Mountain, from within the cloud, with his face veiled (Exodus 34). Even the reflection of God’s glory is too great a weight to bear. Yet, wonderfully, in Jesus’s incarnation we see God face to face – the Word become flesh! Notice how many times the Gospel passage calls upon our seeing. Come and see, says Jesus. Come and see, invites Philip. So, come and see, sings Bob Bennett for us today. Artist  Edward Armitage pictures the scene––it is both iconic, in Jesus’ pose and dress, and figuratively realistic. This is a guy from Nazareth calling James and John, Andrew and Peter, Philip and Nathaniel to come and see. And yet his promise is not only earthy, they will even receive, in seeing him, visions of heaven that had only previously been afforded to their great patriarch Jacob (Genesis 28). For, now, the ladder is replaced by the Son of Man himself.

As we walk into our Lenten journey together––Who do you see? How do you see yourself? How do you long to be seen? And by whom? Jesus’ first followers knew they wanted to see the Messiah, the Son of God, the King of Israel. Let us join them in having the eyes of their hearts opened by Jesus' simple invitation to, Come and See. At the beginning of the passage John sees and points out the Lamb of God. How can you see this Jesus as the Lamb of God? The answer is by following the journey through the Gospel to the final Passover, to see Israel’s and the world’s hopes caught up in the sight of this Jesus hung on a tree. If we, with our poem, are to understand our own bodies, it is not the location that matters, whether under a fig-tree, or at your laptop, or scrolling on your phone––rather we are thrown the question from the ‘vaster radiance’ flaring not now in blossom but in the flowerless death of this Jesus. Only as we see that the question for us is the crucified and risen body of Jesus, and how we respond in coming to see him, only then can we hope again for a garden and a gardener (John 20), and blossom and fruit in dazzling abundance.

Prayer:
Lord God, lift my eyes to see Jesus,
Keep them fixed on him, the author and perfecter of my faith,
Let me see him with others, so that our hearts are warmed within us, together,
Help us call him, Master, as we follow,
Bind us to him, hoped for Messiah of Israel,
King, Lamb, Ruler, Son of God, Man,
May he be our vision, the Lord of our hearts,
Amen.

Dr. Andy Draycott
Associate Professor of Theology
Talbot School of Theology
Biola University

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